While scrolling through Instagram Reels, you naturally pause when an attractive product catches your eye: a sleek laptop bag for travel, a cheap set of popular novels, an ultra-fast wireless charger on sale, beautifully embroidered linen shirts, or leather-bound notebooks with custom gold foil inscriptions. Before you know it, you are entering your credit card number or UPI pincode.Caught up in your shopping spree, you may not have checked the true origin of the product, or other customers’ reviews of the seller. What’s more, you may not even realise that the “company” you paid is just a decorated webpage created with AI and owned by a person who does not hold a single product.This is the economy of drop shipping: the business practice that allows almost anyone with an internet connection to sell products that come from others.Here is what you should know as a customer.What is drop shipping?This is a business practice where an online individual or agent — who does not hold any product — takes orders from customers and passes them on to another maker/seller who actually holds the product. The product is then delivered to the customers, either by the original maker/seller or a third-party delivery service. To put it simply, the drop shipper inserts themselves into the transaction as a middleman. One or even multiple drop shippers might stand between buyers and the original makers of the product they want.